Abstract
Communication that speeds up development and social change in Africa has been the preoccupation of many groups in Africa, especially communication scholars, media practitioners, policy makers, and concerned citizens, who are perplexed by the apparent slow rate of agricultural, economic, and industrial development. The earliest interest started with the pioneer communication researchers in American universities, who laid the foundation, which the African Council for Communication (ACCE) built upon with its various programs of training, research, and publications. Although ACCE suffered a devastating blow in the withdrawal of support from its international partners, as a result of the end of the Cold War, development and social change communication has continued to be one of the most attractive subjects of study in African universities. The relationship among development, innovation, and social change is not linear but complicated, as they can result from, and also reinforce each other. Ostensibly successful in its various programs of research, training, and publishing the Africa Media Review and multiple books on communication, however, ACCE failed in galvanizing broad interests in promoting an African perspective on communication, development communication, and social change communication. The current generation of communication scholars in Africa shall learn to be more strategic in envisioning the future and be more determined to project an authentically African framework or paradigm for communication generally, and for development and social change communication, in particular. Africa, with its current population of 1.33 billion people, must address its development challenges with progressive, innovative, and modernization ideas and practices.
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Okigbo, C. (2021). Rethinking Social Change and Development Communication in Africa. In: Servaes, J. (eds) Learning from Communicators in Social Change. Communication, Culture and Change in Asia, vol 7. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8281-3_14
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